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When YOUR Bank Fails, Don’t Walk … Run!

So. The US economy is just fine. The post-recession 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation has cured all. Banks have lots of cash. Congress is your friend and that certain-to-pass Tax Cut and Jobs bill will finally allow you, your family and America to … MAGA.

Really?!

“I’m sorry, Sir. We are unable to cash this check,” were the ominous words delivered to me by a fresh-faced, none-too-friendly, Wells Fargo Bank manager. He had just kept me waiting ten minutes while in consultation about my requested transaction. Returning to his cubicle he sat down quickly, now looking at me intently through narrowed eyes.

Three feet away, between us and in front of him, were three forms of my personal identification face up. However, he gazed down glowering at two personal checks also laying before him, written to me by a client and drawn on his bank. Not being a “Wells” customer I had expected a shake-down, hence the multiple forms of ID.

These two checks totaled a seemingly paltry sum of almost US$8,000.00. Not expecting this much difficulty I insisted on a reason, to which he now looked up from considering the two checks and replied, “I’m sorry, but the bank does not have sufficient funds on-hand to cash these checks.”

Really?!

Naturally, like the majority of incorrectly indoctrinated US bank depositors I assumed that, as is traditional with banks, this one would have lots and lots of cash.

Au Contraire.

Unapologetically he informed me that he was “sorry” but he could only cash one of the checks at this time. Both checks were for about the same amount. I inquired if this was a new bank policy and was told that the bank simply did not have enough cash on hand, and, “no”, I could not come back at the end of the day after the bank had received the day’s cash deposits. However, if I went to a larger Wells branch they might be able to handle both checks.

This rather unique news seemed worthy of delving into further, so I declined his opening offer and left with my two onerous withdrawals. Being away from home, I decided to wait and stop by my home town’s main Wells Fargo branch office. For anyone following the factual and very dire condition of the world’s economy and its bank’s magnificent set of past, pending, future – and unpunished – financial crimes, my sojourn into the realm of Kafka would become a very cautionary tale.

Oh, those evil banks. The shadowy corporatist denizens of New York, London, and Brussels, all guilty of a staggering set of ever-expanding frauds couched in the beneficent language of greedy short-term materialistic gain. Financial “crimes of the decade,” like the Savings and Loan meltdown, the Enron Collapse, and the Great Recession are nowadays reported almost monthly. With metered US justice amounting only to a monetary fine for the offending criminal bank – usually a small fraction of the money it previously stole, hypothecated, leveraged or manipulated – and with criminal prosecution no longer a possibility, these criminals continue to shovel trillions – not billions – into off-shore, non-tax paying accounts of the already uber-rich. There is never enough.

Just in time for Christmas, Americans received the “Tax Cut and Jobs Bill 2017” that, of course, contains not one word about jobs, but sounds so good to the ignorant who are still transfixed on the false mantra of MAGA.

LIBOR, FOREX, COMEX, which used high-speed program securities trading combined with insider manipulation, were the first serious examples of recent bank frauds. Since the Great Recession magically became the Great Recovery, Wachovia and HSBC banks plead guilty to laundering money for Mexican drug cartels dictators, and terrorists. Wells Fargo and Bank of America were also guilty of defrauding tens of thousands of homeowners of the properties during the “robo-signing” scandal; that was a scandal … until Wells and BA paid the mordida and all returned to business as usual. Example: In July 2017 it was revealed that more than 800,000 customers who had taken out car loans with Wells Fargo were charged for auto insurance they did not need. Barely a month later, Wells was forced to disclose that the number of bogus accounts that had been created was actually 3.5 million, a nearly 70 percent increase over the bank’s initial estimate. Why not? When the predictable result will be a small percentage fine … and keep the rest. Now that’s MAGA!

If the individual retail – Mom and Pop – investor actually had a choice of where to put their cash money, then no one with better than a fifth-grade education would put a penny into the major stock markets. However, the goal of the many banking manipulations have had one goal: eliminate financial investment choices to one – stocks.

One choice, gold and silver, the previous historical champion alternative in preserving one’s wealth, was deliberately eliminated from short-term, private investment. The banks, issued and sold massive amounts of worthless certificate gold and derivative gold (not bullion), and the same in silver, at a current ratio of 272 paper instruments to one measly ounce of real physical gold. All this has been leveraged against real precious metals, and next used to influence the price of gold – down – by selling huge tranches of these ostensibly worthless gold contracts (1 contract=100 paper ounces) within seconds when the spot price of gold begins to rise. The banks have done this so often that gold has not risen to levels it would likely reach without this manipulation. This has driven massive liquidity that would have gone to precious metals towards stocks. This is likely evidenced by the advent of the meteoric rise in the price of Bitcoin, one that – like gold – escapes the bank’s control and a super-inflated stock market.